Ramco Mechanical
Cutting, LTD

When Marc Chord, owner of
Ramco Mechanical Cutting,
says, “My family comes
first,” it is not a cliché. It hits at the
heart of how he runs his modern logging
operation.

Ramco runs four sides, yielding
over 45 million board feet a year. To remain
competitive, the company purposefully
attracts and retains highly
skilled employees by seating them on
the most efficient equipment available
and by treating them like family.

Starting Up in the 90s

At the urging of a friend, Marc entered
the timber industry in 1990 as a
self-employed faller. Within 18 months,
he and a partner pioneered in mechanized
logging, purchasing two feller
bunchers — a 435 Timbco and a Timberjack
2520. “In those days many were
skeptical about mechanized logging,”
says Marc. “ but time has proven it the
right decision.”

In 1993 Marc bought out his partner
and today over 70 percent of Ramco's
business comes from large timber
companies such as Longview Fibre,
Weyerhaeuser, Stimson and Green
Crow. The balance of work is done for
smaller private companies and
landowners. Marc says, “I love what I
do, but there is a special satisfaction that
comes from completing a job for a small
landowner and knowing that they are
happy with the work you have done.”

Lots of Iron

Marc says, “One of our keys to being
competitive and profitable is that the diversity
of our equipment allows us to
compete for all types of jobs. Typically,
we run two cut-to-length crews and two
clear-cut crews, but at times we will
combine crews for efficiency or to keep
everyone working.”

The cut-to-length crews handle
thinning contracts for companies
like Weyerhaeuser — right now it's
the company's 40,000-acre plantation
on Mount St. Helens in the“blast zone.” Skilled operators
deftly guide the 608 and 1270B
Timberjack harvesters through the
25-year-old stand on slopes up to
45 degrees, reducing stand from
350 to 170 stems per acre. In a
seamless motion, the harvesters
fell, delimb, cut to length and
group the crowded, undersized,
weak or defective trees, leaving
unscathed the healthiest stems
with maximum growth potential. Timberjack 1210 forwarders transport
a half-log truckload to the
landing each trip.

Sorting occurs in the woods, rather
than at the landing. Saw logs as small
as 5 inches in diameter are collected
and then the forwarders return for
pulp logs. Typically pulp is taken
down to 3 inches in diameter but on
some jobs even the very tops of the
stems are retrieved.

Marc explains, “It is essential for the
employees and company alike that we
be able to operate year-round. With
these machines, we are able to 'tread
lightly,' minimizing ground disturbance,
and able to harvest in most
weather conditions.” On the day that
TimberWest visited the job site, harvesters
and forwarders were operating
after a night of very heavy rain and the
machines moved about easily, mostly
on top of branches and debris, and seldom
actually touched the sloped
ground.

“We vary our equipment and approach
to harvesting with the seasons,” says Marc.“We seldom operate dozers in the wet seasons
and vary our skid roads and harvest
patterns to minimize potential for silt generation.
Today, with our mechanized techniques
and equipment the biggest challenge
is designing road systems and runoff patterns
to keep from generating mud and
silt.”

Clear-Cut Crews

Ramco also operates two clear-cut
crews, each anchored by a Timberjack
feller buncher and augmented by a“hand faller” for oversized stems or
trees that cannot be reached by the
feller buncher. Shovels forward logs to
either a Pierce 300LC Stroke boom delimber
or a 22-inch Waratah dangle
head delimber for processing.

“On clear-cut jobs an outfit must be
able to do high lead work, so we have
equipped our Komatsu 300-7 shovel
with Pullmaster drums and a slack
pulling carriage in order to still do the
high lead work,” explains Marc. “This
arrangement allows using the shovel
70 percent of the time to support
shovel logging operations when it is
not needed for the high lead work.”

Good Crews are Expensive

As important as it is to have the best
equipment, Marc says that it is also a
major challenge to logging companies
today to hire and retain competent and
reliable operators. He says, “I have
been blessed with wonderful employees
and we have very little turnover.”

For Marc, replacing employees is
not only a “pain in the rear” but it is
also expensive. “I may have to go
through three or four people to find a
good operator and it is very costly to
train someone from the ground up.” Marc estimates that it takes three years
and costs the company a million
dollars to train a proficient harvester
operator.

“Ten years ago, before the equipment
became so technical and specialized,
an outfit could afford to train
people. Now we need to hire qualified people,” says Marc. This creates an other dilemma, as often times a potential
qualified employee is already
working for one of his friends. Marc
honors an informal agreement with
other owners in the area regarding recruiting
employees. “We agreed to let
them come and go but we won't seek
them out.”

Learning the Hard Way

Marc also attributes Ramco's success
to a work ethic and sticking to one's
word — even if it is bad for the bottom
line. He laments, “I have learned some
things the hard way and I will never
forget the number $192,018. That is the
amount of money we lost on one contract
and it was my fault.” He underestimated
the difficulty of a particular job
and it took three and a half months to
complete rather than the one month he
had planned for.

1210 Timberjack Forwarder loading logs being thinned in Mt. St. Helens
blast zone. The stand is part of 40,000 acres of 25 year old reprod owned
by Weyerhaueser.

Planning for the Years Ahead

Marc says that as Ramco has grown,
the focus of his concerns has changed.
In the early days he just wondered how
he would make machine payments.
Then it was how to make machine payments
and payroll. After that it was
planning five years down the road and
now he looks as many as ten years ahead.

Marc's wife, Wendy, takes care of
the office end of Ramco's business and
Marc considers her a full-fledged partner
in the business. She explains that “family first” refers to her and their
two daughters. “But,” she adds, “family
also includes the twenty employees
and their families who depend on us
for a regular paycheck. Sixty people
rely on Marc and he takes that seriously. A crisis for one of our employees
is a crisis for us too.”

As Marc looks to the future he anticipates
staying the same size but replacing
older equipment to remain
effective and competitive. He also
plans to include more private
landowners in his business plans and
to do more land development and
clearing work. Marc says some things
will never change though: “I will always
do the best job I can, I will always
be honest and my family will always come first."